


A Space, However Small

by emrisemrisemris



Series: On Other Fields [4]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Deepthroat, Hair Pulling, M/M, armour is sexy, exposition for days, face fucking, some D/s, somewhere in ACO chapter 7, special feature-length reunion episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emrisemrisemris/pseuds/emrisemrisemris
Summary: Thaletas had thought he remembered Alexios' kisses; indeed, had dwelt on them at length. He realised how much had faded in memory only when Alexios' lips met his and it all came rushing back, intoxicating, smoothing away the aches of months alone. The deep-seated fear that had plagued him for three seasons, that he might never see Alexios again, seemed in retrospect laughably hollow; it was if the morning of their last parting on Mykonos had melted directly into this sunlit afternoon, everything in between barely relevant. The length of the gap seemed less important than the fact that it was over, and he had Alexios' hand in his again.
Relationships: Alexios/Thaletas (Assassin's Creed)
Series: On Other Fields [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600291
Comments: 5
Kudos: 109





	A Space, However Small

Thaletas had adopted one of the rooms on the upper floor of the fort for his own. There was a south-facing window where he had his worktable, a bed tucked against the west wall, and space for chests to hold the garrison records and the soldiers' pay. His pristine new shield hung on the wall behind him, the polished bronze almost a mirror in good light. He'd been given it with the fort, in a spectacular piece of irony, given that the only reason he was here was the same reason he wouldn't be able to so much as pick it up for weeks yet.

His _old_ shield had done its job, coming between him and his left-hand man and a vicious, scything hit from an Athenian brute. He could still remember the noise it made, the strangely musical ring of mace-head on metal, and the wet, truncated crunch as the bronze dish of the shield turned almost inside out. It had taken whole seconds for him to connect the noise to the pain, or to realise that the other noise, the screaming, was coming from him. 

The physician who had set Thaletas' arm, assisted by two of the burliest men in the unit holding him down, had told him that the shield had saved his life. If it had not been his arm, it would have been his - or the next man's - ribs and back: the kind of shattering blow that crushed armour deep into flesh and killed slowly as the wound rotted. Instead it had left him with a clean break between elbow and wrist, that would likely heal without permanent damage if he could only stay still long enough for it to knit back together. 

That meant being sent back from the front line, of course, as soon as he could ride without fainting - a general who his men had to nursemaid was an active liability - and staying away: exerting himself too soon meant he risked undoing all the healing at once and ending up worse off than before. He knew all this. So he had accepted the commission to mind a Lakonian garrison for a few months with as much grace as he could manage, though he chafed bitterly at every new day spent out of harness, coaching weapon drills from the sidelines and reviewing reports with his left arm in a sling, held awkwardly against his chest.

That was what he was doing when movement caught his eye outside the window, brightness and colour where the road came out of the trees. When he stood and leaned on the windowsill to look properly, the polished breastplate and high fan-crested helmet of the lone rider were visible even from here.

The last time he'd had an unexpected visit from a strange polemarch, it had been Brasidas the spy. He had politely but remorselessly pried the scabs off Thaletas' memories of Alexios, and then calmly salted the rawness underneath with his explanation of why he had to know: because the grandfather whose spear Alexios wielded had been Leonidas, _the_ Leonidas, and everything else that followed from that. 

Alexios had never _lied_ to him, not even when Kyra had died and Thaletas had been ready to put a sword through his throat for one wrong word. Nor had he even really tried to distract or deflect from the things he did not say: it had been crystal clear that there was more to it than he wanted to tell, and Thaletas had chosen not to pry into what he guessed to be a deep and private grief. Which it surely was, but it was _also_ a real and direct threat to the stability of Sparta; and - after everything, after how plainly they had spoken with one another - it felt like a rare cowardice on Alexios' part to have kept silent rather than throw it into the open and damn the consequences.

Had he not trusted Thaletas with his secret? Had he simply been afraid? 

The conversation with Brasidas had ended with Thaletas' spelling out what the spy had carefully left unsaid: a simple mercenary assassinating the leader of the Korinthian mob, thereby throwing the city into chaos and opening the way for Athenian forces to take the whole state - which they had - would be lauded for his competence but could ultimately be dismissed as a tool of a wealthy patron. An Agiad heir, however distant, doing the same ... 

Thaletas' fury at Brasidas over the interrogation had died back quickly. The man was a seasoned diplomatic operator informing a commanding general of a new and unsettling complication to the political landscape of the war. He'd done his job, and trusted that, if and when it became necessary, Thaletas would be able to see past his own friendship with Alexios to do his. 

It ate at him in the small hours of the night, that trust.

It bit at him again now as he watched the rider slide nimbly off his horse and speak to the two men on the gate. After a brief conversation, one of the guard stayed at his post, and the other led the strange visitor across the courtyard. 

Not Brasidas, Thaletas decided. He dimly remembered the spymaster as a compact man, no more than his own height, and this visitor was half a head taller than the guard even before the helmet. He still hadn't taken it off, which Thaletas was not impressed by. Pride in one's rank was all very well, but in his experience the men most preoccupied with the trappings of office were usually the same ones least fit to hold it, and if this man commented on Thaletas' own lack of armour - when even fastening his own tunic with one hand felt like a victory worthy of Heracles - Thaletas was going to tell him as much.

The guard captain and the strange polemarch passed out of sight around the side of the building, and a few moments later Thaletas heard the creak of footsteps on the outside staircase. So the visitor _was_ for the commander of the fort, then, and wanted to see him straight away.

It could be any number of things. Some of them might even be _good_ news. Thaletas moved automatically, clumsily making space on the desk, in case the visitor had messages. A second thought struck him, and he rooted out his cipher-stick _._ There was still wine in the jug, good; if this polemarch's visit was so urgent, he could at least offer the man hospitality. He sat down at the desk again, and caught his breath. 

The guard captain knocked, then opened the door anyway and came in. "General Thaletas -"

Behind him, the visiting polemarch lifted off his helmet, the bronze rim catching awkwardly for a moment on the knot of his long hair, and Thaletas was certain that if he hadn't been sitting down he would have fainted again.

"I've come from the capital," interrupted the visitor, who was Alexios, impossibly and incontrovertibly. "May I speak with you in private?"

The captain looked at Thaletas in unspoken question, and he nodded.

"Thank you, Kittos," Thaletas said, hoarsely but absolutely levelly, "This is ... not unexpected. Tell Aniketos I'm busy."

"Sir," Kittos said smartly, and left, drawing the door shut behind him.

Both men listened to the fading creaks as he descended the stairs again, and then Alexios put the helmet down on top of the records chest and said softly "Dear gods. It _is_ you."

Alexios, alive. Alexios, _here,_ in the heart of Lakonia. The intervening year appeared to have changed him not at all - no new scars, no silver in his braids - except for the armour. Alexios in officer's bronze, necessarily either stolen from a storehouse or looted from the dead, was an affront, an outrage, and took Thaletas' breath entirely away.

He wanted to shove aside the crimson warskirt and the breechclout underneath, put his hands on Alexios' waist that the polished corselet showed off so well, and fuck him right there over the table until they were both spent; it had been a year, a whole desolate uncertain _year_ of waiting and wanting -

Thaletas tried to stand up, discovered his legs felt like water, and stayed where he was. Alexios crossed the floor in two long strides and went down to one knee opposite the chair, face all concern.

He'd knelt on Delos, in the golden dust. The memory of his mouth came back to Thaletas hotly and abruptly.

Utterly adrift, suddenly dizzy, Thaletas grasped for the first words - any words - that came bubbling up out of his reeling brain and said, stupidly, "You didn't come by that armour honestly."

Alexios looked as though he'd been expecting something else, possibly literally anything else, but just shrugged and said "Not even a little. Would you like me to take it off?"

Alexios, alive and well and as brash as ever, as if nothing at all had changed.

Thaletas reached numbly to stroke Alexios' face. Alexios collected his hand in his own and held it there, against his cheek, a tiny affectionate gesture that somehow stung. "You look like ... You wear it like you were born to it."

"Spartan blood is eternal," Alexios said wryly, and the so-clever little echo of the first time they'd spoken was enough to solidify the mess of Thaletas' emotions into one, which was fury. 

"Yes. It is." He withdrew his hand, and demanded "Were you planning to _tell_ me at some point that you have a claim to the fucking _throne_?"

"What?

Thaletas shoved himself upright, ignoring the pang as the sling briefly tightened under his injured arm, and ground out "Stop playing coy. You're of age, you're fit and your blood is better than King Pausanias' father's was. When Pleistarchus died -"

"Who the fuck is Pleistarchus?" Alexios interrupted as he got to his feet.

"Leonidas' son! Did your mother never -" Thaletas slammed his right hand down on the table in sheer frustration, and started again. "By Hades, I know you were a child, but how could you not _know_ that your mother's brother was the _king_?"

"She talked about her father often. Never her siblings. I never met them. I ... don't think she thought they were important." Alexios sounded shaken, as if some unpleasant conclusion had just dawned on him. All the colour had gone out of his face; he looked sick. "All right, I didn't tell you everything. But the Spartan throne? You couldn't pay me enough for _that_ job."

"It's not me you need to convince," Thaletas snapped.

"I'm sure the kings will be glad to hear that part too," Alexios retorted, temper visibly rising again from whatever brief panic had distracted him. "Which is good, because they aren't going to like the rest of it."

"Stop." Thaletas wanted to shout, but was acutely aware he didn't have the breath. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, and held up his working hand. His splinted arm ached, the pain pulsing with his heartbeat. "Alexios. Stop being -" he cast about for a word, and said savagely "- _mysterious_. For one thing, you're bad at it. For another ... A single soldier can only do so much. A phalanx is strong, because every man trusts his life to the man beside him. Do you trust me?"

Silence. It should have been dark, Thaletas thought absurdly, or stormy; the weather should have respected the widening, freezing gap as Alexios considered the question. Instead the sunlight continued to pick out the golden flecks in his eyes, and the faint shift of muscles under skin as he crossed his arms tighter across his chest. 

He'd been expecting another hot retort: another attempt to explain or deflect, or sarcasm, something he could shout back at. He hadn't expected this uncharacteristic cold consideration. It felt as if he'd thrown himself into a sword-stroke, already thinking two steps ahead, ready to take up the force of the inevitable parry and turn it into the next blow, and instead Alexios had stepped away and let him fall.

He only realised he was clenching his fists when the tension sent white fire up his left arm.

"I trust you," Alexios said at last. "I shouldn't have doubted you. I'm sorry."

"You can make it up to me later," Thaletas said, and Alexios cracked a smile. "But first, tell me everything."

"I should warn you," Alexios said dryly, "everything about it sounds impossible, and it's going to make you a lot of new enemies."

Thaletas opened his one available hand, and said "What more could any Spartan ask for?"

Alexios chuckled at that, then pulled out the spare stool from its corner beside the records chest and sat on it. He sighed, and Thaletas expected the beginning of another Alexios explanation, blunt to the point of hair-raising. Instead the mercenary looked up and said with unexpected rawness "Gods, Thaletas, I've missed you."

"This _year,_ " Thaletas said, more vehemently than he'd intended, and abruptly other words came spilling out on the heels of those ones. _"_ A whole godforsaken year, waiting for you. Every battle we fought I was afraid I'd see you in the Athenian line. Or among the dead."

"Every time I've taken work from a Spartan commander I hoped it would be you. And there was a moment in Korinth when ..." Alexios shook his head, abandoning whatever the thought had been, and then slid off the stool, back to his knees. He reached for Thaletas' hand, his warm, callused grip instantly, intimately familiar. "I heard you'd been hurt in Messenia. I should have been there."

"It's war. People get hurt." Thaletas shrugged, making a rueful face as the movement twinged his arm. "I had half a Spartan army with me. I doubt you could have done much more."

Alexios tilted his head, grinning, and said "Maybe not."

And kissed him.

Thaletas had thought he remembered Alexios' kisses; indeed, had dwelt on them at length. He realised how much had faded in memory only when Alexios' lips met his and it all came rushing back, intoxicating, smoothing away the aches of months alone. The deep-seated fear that had plagued him for three seasons, that he might never see Alexios again, seemed in retrospect laughably hollow; it was if the morning of their last parting on Mykonos had melted directly into this sunlit afternoon, everything in between barely relevant. The length of the gap seemed less important than the fact that it was over, and he had Alexios' hand in his again.

When they parted, Alexios put his free hand on Thaletas' shoulder, toying with the pin of his tunic, shook his head, and said "Still irresistible."

"You'll have to resist a little longer," Thaletas said lightly, though it was a wrench. "You owe me a story, and I do actually have duties this afternoon."

"I'll hold you to that," Alexios retorted. He got to his feet, and ignored the stool in favour of leaning on the edge of the desk, absent-mindedly folding his arms again. "The story - I'll tell you the short version. It's not as if the long one makes any more sense." He grimaced. "My distant ancestors were ... more than mortal. Maybe the gods, or the chosen of the gods. All that's left is ruins, a few treasures, and their children's children." 

"Everyone knows the line of Leonidas goes back to Heracles," Thaletas said.

"Whoever they were, I descend from them on both sides," Alexios said. "Nikolaos was my father in the ways that mattered. He raised me, he was proud of me, until he wasn't. But he wasn't my blood father. It was the last thing he ever said to me," he added bitterly. "My mother ... found another man descended from the ancient people, to keep her lineage strong. That's a _whole_ other story." This parenthetically, with an expression suggesting he didn't completely believe that part himself. "I think Leonidas must have done the same with my mother's mother. He had other children to safeguard the throne; my mater inherited something else." He reached behind his back with his left hand, and drew and proffered the broken spearhead. "This. Yes, it's the spear of Leonidas. But it was old before he was even born." 

Thaletas took it, and weighed it in his hand. The broken shaft had been finished with a metal pommel, transforming it into a kind of long-handled dagger. That repair looked clean, almost new. But the ornamentation on the leaf of the blade was worn to indecipherability; the few letters he could see reminded him of the inscriptions on ancient steles. Light seemed almost to pool in the carvings, an unnatural golden shimmer that matched the colour neither of the tarnished metal nor of the watery sunshine outside.

He looked up, a chill seizing his spine, ready to demand Alexios take it back as it was clearly cursed, and the world fell away around him into darkness.

*

In a room that might have belonged to any well-born family in Sparta, a serving-woman sat with a girl of no more than eight, rebuilding a wall of wooden blocks.

The door opened, and the man who left his spear against the doorpost and crouched down, arms wide, was Leonidas. He was older than the sculptors showed him, hair gone all to silver, but hale and strong, and he laughed when the girl dropped her wooden horse and ran to him.

"Pater!"

Leonidas gathered her up, and nodded to the maid, who dipped her head respectfully and withdrew. "I can't stay, child, but I couldn't go without saying goodbye to my Myrrine, hmm?"

"Where are you going?" Myrrine demanded.

Leonidas sat back in a crouch as she wriggled free, and said "I'm taking the army to fight in the north. I need you to study hard with your tutors and help your mother look after Sparta while I am gone, chaire? Like Penelope."

Myrrine's eyes narrowed at the mention of Odysseus' queen, and she said accusingly "Are you going to be away for twenty years?"

"No," Leonidas said, with a laugh that did not quite reach his eyes. "I'll be back before you know it."

"He won't be coming back," said a voice from somewhere behind them.

Leonidas rose, Myrrine clinging wide-eyed to his left arm, and turned to put his body between the speaker and the child. The wall of wooden blocks tumbled apart as he stepped back.

Leaning in the doorway was a figure in swathing black robes, topped with an incongruously grinning theatrical mask. It raised both hands, only the fingertips showing in the smothering sleeves, and said silkily "Easy, Leonidas. I have been sent to speak with you, no more."

"You've spoken," Leonidas said flatly. "Get out."

"Little Myrrine is a fighter," the figure said, ignoring him. "But she's only a child. Who will look after your daughter when you are dead? Her mother?"

"Better Hades than Kosmos. Get _out_ , before I shove that mask down your throat."

"I tried," the figure said, shrugging. It looked from the king to the little girl, something almost like regret in the tilt of the masked head. "Little girl, when your father is gone, remember that we tried."

It stepped back around the post of the door, and was gone. Leonidas stared after it a moment, and then set Myrrine down next to the tumbled blocks.

"Are you going to die?" Myrrine said.

"Everyone dies, Myrrine," Leonidas said heavily. "Everyone dies."

*

Thaletas reflexively dropped the spear as the vision faded: the metal chasing was blood-hot. It landed point-down in the wooden floor and stuck, the edge ringing briefly before settling into stillness.

Alexios bent to pull the spear free, and stowed it back in its sheath, face unreadable. "I hadn't planned to introduce you to my mother just yet, but there you are."

"Does it always do that?" Thaletas demanded.

"No. I've seen it once before in my life," Alexios said, shaking his head. "At the site of Thermopylai, it showed me the battle. I don't know why it did it then, or now."

"Who was behind the mask?"

"Someone from the other half of the story," Alexios said. "Our ... hereditary enemies. Have you heard of the Cult of Kosmos?"

"No."

"Everyone who has is either in it, or one of their targets," Alexios said, shrugging, and added, with a grin that had no real humour in it, "Welcome to the kill list."

"Then I'm in good company," Thaletas said, and Alexios actually smiled. "I've never heard of Kosmos-followers."

"I don't know how many of them truly worship. What they believe in is power. They stoke the flames of war all over Hellas for their own ends." Alexios shook his head. "They've spent generations building up wealth and connections. Podarkes was one of them. The Monger, in Korinth, too."

"Your assassinations," Thaletas said, as it clicked into place. "That's who they were. Brasidas said it made no sense -"

"You know Brasidas?" Alexios said in surprise, which gave way to outrage as he parsed the rest of the sentence. "Wait. Brasidas talked to you about _me_?"

"It was him who filled me in on your ... political connections," Thaletas said. "After he came back from Korinthia, the kings set him to find out if you were a threat to Sparta."

"And am I?" Alexios said, eyebrows raised. 

"I don't know," Thaletas retorted. "Who are you in Lakonia to kill?"

"Guess," Alexios said grimly. "There's a leader of the Cult here. If it's not one of the Two Kings, it's someone close enough to know their plans and use their ciphers."

Only Alexios, Thaletas thought with vague detachment, would walk into a Spartan fort, sit with its commander, and announce that he was here to kill a king. It would have seemed like monstrous hubris from anyone else. From Alexios, it was matter-of-fact.

Brasidas had warned him of the uproar caused by the omen on the night Alexios had been meant to die. Years of wild rumours, he'd said, of a conspiracy hatched within one of the royal houses to bring down the other. That conversation, and now this one, were reorienting familiar facts of recent history at unpleasant angles. "It wouldn't be the first time. King Pausanias' father was exiled for selling secrets to Persia, maybe fifteen years ago. Or at least -" Thaletas ground his teeth "- they said it was Persia."

Alexios swore. "You think Pausanias is carrying on the family business?"

Thaletas drummed the fingers of his right hand on the edge of the desk, uneasy. "Maybe. But the exile gave Archidamos more power, too: suddenly his fellow king was much younger, and had fewer friends." He added, after a moment, "And Pausanias is your cousin. His grandfather was Leonidas' brother. Would the Cult want to recruit him, or kill him?"

"Hades only knows. They've tried both on me," Alexios said darkly, and sat down on the stool again. "I was expecting you to tell me that it was impossible any Spartan king would ever betray Lakonia."

"Why do you think we have two kings instead of one?" Thaletas said acidly. "Neither of the founding houses trusted that Sparta would be in safe hands with the other."

"And this way if a king does have to be -" Alexios looked to be weighing his words, and settled politely on "- removed, Sparta does not fall. It's the phalanx again."

Thaletas remembered, suddenly and forcefully, the delight he'd felt as a boy when he made the same connection. He couldn't have been more than thirteen, and his instructor had spun it off into a miniature lecture about how even the great kings, descendants of gods and heroes as they were, were stronger when they fought together. Every soldier in the fort could have recited much the same lesson. 

Nine years old, Alexios had been, when he'd left Lakonia. Two years into the agoge, still young enough that the precepts of politics and history and the study of war - the ones that Thaletas had had drilled into him to the point they were less principles he had learned than instincts, understood at a level beneath thought - would be dim fragments if he remembered them at all. He'd spent his years as a mercenary fighting alone, sword in one hand, spearpoint in the other. No shield. 

No expectation of anyone beside him who a shield would protect. 

"Yes," was all he could find to say. "Yes, it is."

"I'm not just here to commit treason," Alexios said dryly, after slightly too long. "My mother is reclaiming her citizenship and her holdings, and she wants me to claim mine. I didn't expect she'd ever want to come back here." He shook his head, incomprehension written on his face. "But -" he shrugged "- she says it's home."

Thaletas thought of the little girl he'd seen in the vision, raised in the very heart of Sparta, even then straight-backed and unafraid. He remembered, too the sheer gladness that flooded him to the bones every time he came back to Lakonia from the front, and the golden daydreams he'd entertained on the voyage home from Mykonos of trying to share that feeling with Alexios. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to come home to the shadow of Taygetos after as long as Myrrine had been away from it, like Odysseus washed up at last on Ithaca after twenty years abroad, and could not encompass it. "She lived a whole life here before she lost you. Of course it's her home."

Alexios shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever understand that."

"I can't tell you what Lakonia means to your mother," Thaletas said. "But - while you're here - I can try and show you what it is to me."

He did not ask, though it burned on his tongue, the question of how long _while you're here_ was going to be. 

Alexios looked at him for a long moment, and his face softened. "I'd like that."

"Good. We can start with the fort. It's what I'd do for a real visiting officer." He got up, moved stiffly to the door, and added over his shoulder "You can tell the maintenance detail all the boltholes they need to block up, as well."

He heard Alexios chuckle behind him as they went outside.

"You've been on the road a long time," Thaletas made a point of saying slightly louder than necessary as they came down the steps. "You should stay the night. In fact, I insist."

"As you command, general," Alexios said, with the kind of friendly deference that might be natural between a senior officer and one more senior still, and Thaletas could practically hear him grinning.

"Then it's settled." They reached the foot of the stairs, rounded the corner of the building, and came out into the open centre of the fort, where a makeshift wall of supply crates and weapons racks marked out the practice ground, where the unit not on watch were drilling. 

If it hadn't been for the arm, Thaletas would have taken a turn in the ring himself: it was good for the soldiers to see their general pitching in with the daily grind, and good for him to do it. If it hadn't been for the arm, though, he wouldn't be here, but in a forward camp in Elis or Achaia, fighting battles - and still looking over his shoulder for Alexios; still lying awake at night staring at the ceiling-timbers, remembering a handful of brightly coloured moments that glowed in memory like the gods and heroes painted on temple walls. His stomach twisted again, as it had a thousand times before, at how _close_ it had been; but now the imagined terror was not the death that some generous god had commuted to a shattered arm, but of this coincidence missed, of Alexios finally coming home to Lakonia, and his never knowing.

He stopped to watch the recruits for a moment anyway, and get hold of himself again. Alexios settled in beside him with what looked like genuine interest, and an irresistible idea occurred.

"If you're not too tired from the ride -" Thaletas turned, "- perhaps you'd care to put some of my younger men through their paces."

Alexios folded his arms, failing to entirely conceal a grin. "What, you can't challenge me to a rematch, so you're inflicting me on your soldiers?"

"I'm sure they can learn from you. I did." He caught the eye of the captain overseeing the drill and nodded; the gaggle of adolescents, only a year or three out of the agoge, stopped and waited.

"Spears down," Alexios said, vaulting the wooden barrier of the practice area, and the line of young men obediently, if confusedly, set them aside and unslung their shields. He nodded companionably to the captain, who saluted and got out of the way, then picked one of the wooden practice blades out of its rack and weighed it in his hand, testing the balance. "When things are too close for the spear - or too far gone - it all comes down to the sword. Who wants to show me what you can do?"

Somewhat to Thaletas' surprise, Alexios was a good if not especially polished instructor, encouraging with the green recruits and patient with their mistakes. Thaletas kept a mental tally both of the ones who were recklessly fearless and the ones who were sensibly wary, and spared a brief, inward, sympathetic wince for the handful who were visibly smitten. Years ago, he'd made a spectacular fool of himself over his first commanding officer, which had been bad enough; he couldn't imagine meeting a force of nature like Alexios at that age. 

Even at _this_ age, it seemed, he still couldn't keep himself entirely from giddiness. It took conscious effort not to grin like an idiot whenever he looked at the man. Alexios had shown up and promptly dragged him into gods-knew-what kind of treasonous mess on top of a Pandora's box of insane conspiracies, every twist in the tale less likely than the last, and still it was so, so good to have him back.

Kittos, plainly dying of curiosity behind a professional facade, sidled around the edge of the practice ground to his side, and said "You know him?"

"We fought together last year in the Silver Islands," Thaletas said easily. 

They watched Alexios coach two of the young hoplitei through another flurry of blows, which ended with one of the wooden swords spinning out of its wielder's grip; Alexios picked it up, lent the boy who'd dropped it a hand up out of the dust, and gave it back, grinning. 

Thaletas wasn't sure whether the pang that shot through him was wistfulness or anger. Alexios should have had a happy childhood in Lakonia. Lakonia should have had Alexios on its side all this time. He'd have been an extraordinary battle polemarch. Or - given his talent for stealth and brutal, quiet efficiency - perhaps more likely been recruited into the corps of men who served Sparta by less public means. 

Beside him, Kittos lowered his voice and said "General, is he krypteia?"

Kittos had been a scout before they promoted him, and made a good guard captain not least because of that same sharp awareness of when something was out of place.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, captain," Thaletas said, which at least wasn't an outright lie.

"Of course, sir," Kittos said, and moved smartly off. The rumour would probably have half the camp believing it as divinely-revealed truth by the following morning, but gossip could be contained, and it would stop anyone prying too deeply into other possible explanations.

Alexios wrapped up the impromptu sword drill a little sooner than he could have done, while the gaggle of youngsters were still excited rather than flagging, and relinquished the practice ground back to their captain. He came back through the fences to where Thaletas waited, and said in an undertone "Satisfied?"

"I enjoyed that," Thaletas said, at normal volume. "It's always good to watch someone of your talents work."

"Is it, now," Alexios said, with a raise of the eyebrow that brought heat to Thaletas' face. "Come on, then; let's see the fort."

There was, in truth, only so much fort to show. Any permanent encampment, no matter where it was or who manned it, needed basically the same things, and it was only a question of how it made sense to arrange them. But it was an excuse to spend time side by side, without feeling entirely as if he was neglecting his duties or throwing unnecessary fuel on the inevitable rumours' fire. By the time he had taken Alexios around the walls, the sun had slid down behind the bulk of Taygetos in the west and the sky over the mountains, striped and mottled with clouds, glowed gold and orange, fading slowly out to cherry-red like cooling steel. 

Later, Thaletas could not have said what they talked about, or even how many words they had exchanged at all. Out here, where they could be overheard, there could be no discussion of cults or crowns; instead the conversation wandered, passing ephemerally over the silhouetted ship moving distantly on the sea and the flitting of early bats overhead, the lights of the village in the valley, war stories, old wounds, dead friends. 

The guards on the wall, who saluted Thaletas and eyed Alexios with respectful curiosity, would see and hear only two battle-comrades reunited. The more observant ones, or those who'd spent longer posted this way and that as the battle-map shifted and shifted back, might recognise the uncertain closeness of lovers apart for too long. They would not see Alexios coolly planning regicide, or Thaletas wondering when he'd become so certain of Alexios' word that he would contemplate aiding and abetting treason on the strength of it.

The sun almost gone down, they ate around the long table in the mess room. At the same hour, or close to it, the garrison of every Spartan fort across Hellas would start to do the same. Herodianos, if he was still alive, would be sitting down in the fort on Mykonos, in the place of the Athenian commander Alexios had killed. Even outside the military camps, the communal evening meal would bring the citizens of a village or a city district together. The same scene would be taking place all across Lakonia and beyond, infinitely familiar, but now it had Alexios in it, and was all of a sudden strange and wonderful.

The mercenary ate like he'd only just remembered what food was. Thaletas found he had a real appetite for the first time in altogether too long: the doctor's orders to eat well to keep his strength up and help the break heal had come up against the lack of impetus to eat when it felt like he'd been doing nothing.

The unit who'd eaten first spread back out through the fort to relieve those who hadn't. Others, not on guard rotation, went back to the thousand other tasks that needed doing to keep a fort of a hundred men in order. There were animals to see to, cleaning and clearing, fires to be lit as the sky sank through purple into almost-black.

Alexios, as an unexpected visitor, had no task. Thaletas handed him off to Kittos, with some vague comment about finding him a bunk - Alexios departing with a sidelong look that said he did not plan to stay in it - and went impatiently to finish his own duties.

On any other night, he would have found the fort's quiet slowing-down for the night restful. Today, especially with a chunk of his afternoon lost to talking to Alexios, a thousand things seemed to need his attention. He dealt as patiently as he could with as many as could be answered, and left the rest as problems for tomorrow. Finally, the moon riding high over the treetops, he walked the walls again with the captain of the night watch, made the formal handover of command, and took himself to bed. 

He climbed the wooden staircase wrapped around the tower slowly, keeping his right hand on the wall to steady himself. When he pushed the door open, Alexios was already there, standing by the desk, looking out the window towards the distant glitter of the sea horizon. He turned as Thaletas came in, and said "Your guards are sharp. Your windows could use a bolt."

"Nobody except you thinks a sane way of breaking into a tower is to climb a sheer wall," Thaletas said over his shoulder, taking a taper out of the pot next to the door and leaning back out to light it from the brazier outside.

Alexios shrugged. "That must be why I keep getting away with it."

He did not try to get in the way, which was a breath of fresh air, but stood back and let Thaletas shut the door, light the sputtering lamp on the desk, and latch the boltless shutters over the window. With the moonlight attenuated to a narrow sliver across the floor, the little room became a close box of cosy dimness.

Through the voyage back from Mykonos, and in the long months since, Thaletas had daydreamed of a space, however small, that he could invite Alexios into and close the door. No more camps or ruins or caves. That picture, by now thoroughly detailed from regular rehearsal, had not included a half-healed broken arm. He wasn't going to be holding Alexios down tonight, no matter how much he wanted to. He turned from the window to step into Alexios' embrace, the sling and the splint awkwardly between them, and said "Help me undress."

"Do you want -" Alexios began.

"This time," Thaletas said ruefully, "just get it off."

"Your wish is my command," Alexios said wryly, kissed him on the cheek - the imprint of his lips lingering hotly on Thaletas' skin - and undid the pins of his tunic and buckle of his belt with no more than two or three meaningful pauses. 

Naked, Thaletas sat down on the edge of the narrow bed, shoving the heavy blankets toward the wall. He lay carefully on his side as close to the edge as was practical, arranging his useless arm on a pillow that by now had a dent in it from where the splint rested, and only then pulled loose the knot of the sling so he could lie back. Alexios let him take his time, waiting, and stretching absently. He didn't look like he'd spent his day riding and in the practice yard; but for the lack of a shield, he might have been ready for a ceremonial parade.

Thaletas' attention snagged briefly on the notion of letting Alexios keep the armour on, having him kneel by the bed and fucking his mouth with the red-trimmed bronze still on his shoulders. His cock tightened at the thought. But the prospect of lying skin to skin with Alexios again overrode it, overrode almost every other thought, like a physical ache.

Thaletas caught Alexios' eye, gestured vaguely at the bronze harness, and said crisply "Take it off."

In the past, Alexios had always disarmed with the efficiency of long practice and of a man who chafed at heavy armour and did not much care where it fell when he put it down. Now he checked just as he'd started, one hand working loose the straps of the other bracer, and gave Thaletas a long, considering look that abruptly blossomed into a smile. "It's good armour. I should be more careful."

He took off the rest of it with easy slowness, glancing up every so often to make sure Thaletas was still watching him and grin. It was, Thaletas thought hazily, deeply unfair that he looked just as devastating in the unadorned red tunic underneath as in full battle harness. 

That came off too, neatly folded and laid with the armour, and then the breechclout, and finally the leather strip that tied up his hair. The yellow lamplight glittered briefly off the beads as his braids fell around his jaw, and then he reached down to the desk and pinched out the lampwick. The colour of the half-dark deepened from gold to grey.

Alexios stepped into the strip of moonlight falling across the room, the pale light leaching the richness from his skin and leaving only white planes and inky shadows. Thaletas thought suddenly of the oldest statues, their glorious colours long since gone, but which gained a different kind of stark uncanny beauty in decay.

If anyone made statues of Alexios one day, and it did not seem altogether unlikely, they would carve him like the gods and heroes, proud and defiant, sword in hand. This quiet nakedness would not be remembered; it would remain between them, in narrow spaces like this one, a fragile gift.

"Come here," Thaletas told him, marvelling inwardly at the words, that he could do so, that Alexios wanted it. Wanted _him._

Even to try and consider how lucky he was, how outrageously and immoderately blessed, was so forceful a sensation that it hurt.

Alexios lay down, propped up on his left elbow to stay clear of Thaletas' injured arm, and kissed him. He was very warm, and smelt of leather and exertion. The taste of Alexios, the way his mouth yielded to Thaletas' tongue, felt familiar, like the weight of a well-used weapon settling into his palm. 

Thaletas ran his free hand up Alexios' back, marvelling once again at the topography of muscle and sinew, and then gave in to temptation and slid his fingers up into the mercenary's long hair. He felt Alexios shiver, just a little, at his grip, and that tiny movement was enough to send intoxicating heat all through him. 

He kept hold, not tightly but definitely, when Alexios' lips finally parted from his. They were still close enough he could feel Alexios' breath on his face as he said "With me like this -" he rolled his eyes ruefully towards his other arm "- you'll have to do all the work yourself."

"I can do that," Alexios murmured. "Where should I start?"

Thaletas let go of Alexios' hair for the sake of being able to stroke his face. He cupped Alexios' chin, running his thumb over the other's bottom lip, and heard his breath hitch. "I've dreamed about your mouth for the past year."

Alexios kissed his fingers as he withdrew his hand, and then his cheek, and the angle of his jaw; leaned into the curve of Thaletas' shoulder, kissing the soft hollows of his throat and collarbone, finding spots of unexpected sensitivity he'd barely known were there. From there, downward, tracing the contours of his chest, stroking Thaletas' nipples to hardness with callused fingertips and then lowering his head to worship them with lips and tongue. 

Alexios like this, bending his full concentration - the same terrifying focus that Thaletas had seen carve open a shield wall, finding and exploiting weak points with lethal precision - on wordless service, was dizzying. Every touch, however light, felt like it was drawing heat to his skin. He half-expected to see a glowing trail. It did not seem right that so much sensation could leave no visible trace. 

Alexios pushed himself back on the bed and dropped his head, and licked the first drops of cum carefully from the head of Thaletas' cock.

The simmering need that had been building in Thaletas all afternoon - or perhaps all year - abruptly flowed over. He wanted to fuck Alexios, armour or no armour, to take him with the same force and abandon as before. He'd waited this long to have Alexios again, jerked off to the burning memory of being inside him, and could wait no longer.

"Alexios," Thaletas said softly, and his lover pulled himself back up until they were face to face, his long hair tumbling down to frame a little bubble warm with their breath. Thaletas stroked his cheek, and whispered "I want to fuck your mouth. I want to take you until it hurts. I want you to come with the taste of me in your throat." He felt rather than saw Alexios shiver, and his cock shuddered in return. "Will you kneel for me?"

"Always," Alexios said, and that on its own was almost too much.

The flush of heat faded briefly as they addressed practicalities. Alexios helped him sit up, re-tie the sling and scoop it over his head. He moved to the edge of the bed, shuffling to be comfortable, while Alexios found his tunic and dropped it on the floor rather than kneel on the bare wood.

Thaletas had intended to stroke himself hard, and found he barely needed to as Alexios knelt, his untouched cock already invitingly stiff, and on his face the faintest beginnings of that maddening smile.

Alexios looked up, eyes meeting Thaletas' for one lingering moment, and then took his own cock obediently in his hand and bent his head to take Thaletas in his mouth. He was eager and fever-hot as he leaned in, taking the full length of Thaletas' shaft, until his lips met the base. 

Thaletas took hold of his hair with his one free hand, and hesitated for a moment. Then Alexios caught his eye; it was the smallest of movements, and yet Thaletas had had entire fucks with less raw lust in them than there was in that single wordless look.

He thrust roughly and desperately into the close heat of Alexios' mouth and throat, and every guilty, fervid dream he'd had since the day they met faded by comparison.

A year ago on Delos, amid the ruins of a sacred place, he'd challenged Alexios to a duel. He'd realised within the first dozen heartbeats that he was going to lose, and it had been curiously freeing to laugh at his own hubris and set himself to making Alexios work for it. He'd found an unexpected joy in being outmatched: a chance to hold back nothing, to attack with every ounce of fire and ingenuity he had, without fear of doing harm. Alexios could take anything he had to offer.

It had been the most exhilarating fight of his life. When Alexios finally sent him sprawling into the dust he would have laughed if he'd had breath left to do it. 

There was the same unfettered relish in fucking Alexios as there was in fighting him: in the savage thrill of using his lover exactly how he wanted to be used, in feeling Alexios tense and shudder and moan around him, as thoroughly lost in being conquered as Thaletas was in conquest. 

He stroked himself roughly as Thaletas fucked him, and came first, his shoulders and back tensing and bowing as he spilled himself into his own hand. He gasped around Thaletas' cock but did not withdraw, still obedient as Thaletas thrust into him, and that was enough for Thaletas to come at the back of his throat, fingers tightening convulsively in Alexios’ hair. Alexios sucked him eagerly, the relentless pressure and sensation drawing Thaletas' climax out until it felt like he'd run dry. 

He let go of Alexios' head, and pulled away, his cock abruptly painfully sensitive. Alexios put both hands on his knees and bent forward, swallowing, and then took a moment to catch his breath. When he looked up, he was smiling.

Thaletas stood, grimacing as his arm made itself known again and his joints registered the tension he'd put on them for the last while, and - with warmth rising in his chest, so much he almost laughed aloud - offered Alexios a hand up.

Alexios took it, pulled himself nimbly upright with no sign of stiffness, and kissed Thaletas affectionately. Thaletas tasted a trace of himself on Alexios' lips, and felt a brief, guilty, proprietary satisfaction.

Alexios stepped back, and said hoarsely "Dear Aphrodite, you are worth waiting for."

"I'd rather not wait another year for the next time," Thaletas said, not altogether joking, and Alexios snorted.

He turned away, and found the wine jug to wash the taste from his mouth. Thaletas sat back, swung his legs back onto the bed - his knees and thighs protested - and lay down. Alexios turned back, and they both looked at the narrow bed and the careful arrangement of cushions laid out for Thaletas' arm.

"I'll have the floor," Alexios said cheerfully. "It's still better than the side of a mountain."

"If I'm honest, there's not that much of a difference," Thaletas said ruefully. "Luxury -"

"Is for Athenians, yes," Alexios said, grinning, and shook out the heavy officer's cloak onto the floorboards by the low bed. Thaletas fumbled under the pillow for the sleeping-draught the physician had given him, to help counter both the persistent ache of the arm and the cramps of lying still, took a mouthful, and stowed it away.

He lay awake for a little while, watching the strip of moonlight creep up the wall, listening to Alexios' breathing settle out into the slow rhythm of sleep. Eventually he slipped into sleep himself, warm, peaceful, contented, and free of dreams.


End file.
